1. Technical Field
The present invention generally relates to a liquid ejecting head that ejects liquid, a method for manufacturing a liquid ejecting head, and a liquid ejecting apparatus that is provided with a liquid ejecting head. More particularly, the invention relates to an ink-jet recording head that discharges ink as an example of various kinds of liquid, a method for manufacturing an ink-jet recording head, and an ink-jet recording apparatus that is provided with an ink-jet recording head.
2. Related Art
An ink-jet recording head, which is an example of various kinds of liquid ejecting heads, has the following configuration and ejects ink as follows. Ink is contained in ink cartridges, which are detachably attached to a cartridge case. When the ink cartridges are detachably attached to the cartridge case, ink-supply needles are detachably inserted into the ink cartridges. The ink cartridge is an example of a liquid container. The cartridge case is an example of a liquid supply member. The ink-supply needle is an example of a liquid supply inlet unit. An ink flow passage is formed inside and through each of the ink-supply needle and the supply member. The ink contained in the ink cartridge enters the ink-supply needle and then flows through the ink flow passage. The ink is supplied through the ink flow passage to an ink-ejecting head body. A pressure generating means such as a piezoelectric element or the like is provided in the head body. When the pressure generating means is driven, an ink-ejecting pressure is applied to the ink supplied to the head body. As a result, the ink jet recording head discharges ink from nozzles.
Air bubbles are often present in ink that is contained in an ink cartridge. In particular, air bubbles sometimes form in an ink cartridge at the time of the attachment or detachment thereof. If air bubbles that are present or formed in ink contained in an ink cartridge are entrained with the flow thereof at the time when the ink is supplied from the ink cartridge to the head body of the ink-jet recording head, such entrained air bubbles might reach the head body. As a result, the ink-discharging performance of the ink jet recording head could deteriorate. For example, missing dots, which is an ink-discharging problem, could occur due to the undesirable presence of air bubbles in ink retained inside the head body. In order to provide a technical solution to such a problem, some ink-jet recording heads of the related art have filters for trapping air bubbles, catching foreign objects and particles, and the like. Each of these filters is provided between the corresponding one of a plurality of ink-supply needles and a supply member. An example of such an ink jet recording head of the related art is disclosed in JP-A-2000-211130.
These filters and the supply member are fixed to each other by means of, for example, a heat-sealing technique or other adhesion/deposition technique. The ink-supply needles and the supply member are fixed to each other by means of, for example, an ultrasonic welding technique or other adhesion/deposition technique.
However, if the structure disclosed in JP-A-2000-211130 is adopted, it is necessary to fix the plurality of ink-supply needles to the supply member piece by piece. Since the plurality of ink-supply needles has to be fixed thereto individually, the manufacturing process thereof is not efficient, which increases production costs.
The problems identified above are not unique to an ink-jet recording head. That is, the same problems could also arise in various kinds of liquid ejecting heads.